Rochester's Racial Equity Initiative

About Us

Mission FR=EE convenes and encourages candid, respectful and inclusive community dialogues on race in order to create actions to eliminate structural barriers that maintain racial inequities in greater Rochester.

Vision Greater Rochester has faced racial oppression and has achieved social equity and justice for all.

Facing Race, Embracing Equity is designed to promote awareness about racial issues in Rochester and foster meaningful conversations about how we can substantially improve our understanding of each other, identify pathways to alleviate structural inequity, and reduce disparities that exist in our community.

The success of Facing Race, Embracing Equity requires broad-based participation from a diverse range of organizations. Under the guidance of the Rochester Museum & Science Center, the Rochester Area Community Foundation, the Rochester Initiative for Structural Equity, and a host of community partners, we strive to create a sustainable network of support for allies committed to the long-term goal of demolishing stereotypes and prejudice in our community.

Together, we can face issues of race and embrace a community that provides equitable opportunities for all.

FR=EE Tenets and Principles

FR=EE commits to developing a process that ensures that the voices of the voiceless are heard, listened to, and acted on.

FR=EE commits to developing an organizational structure that ensures that we do not replicate and perpetuate systemic advantages and disadvantages based on any forms of oppression, particularly racism.

FR=EE commits to the creation of an organizational structure that models a “power with” versus a “power over” model.

FR=EE recognizes that efforts already exist in the community to grapple with matters of racial and ethnic discrimination and inequity: we commit to build partnerships so these activities can have greater reach and effectiveness.

FR=EE recognizes that a “siloed” approach will fail: we commit to look at ALL of our systems – education, health, criminal justice, youth development, economic opportunity – because they are all connected and the role of race crosses all of them, often reinforcing existing inequities.

FR=EE recognizes that people are in different places on the matter of race – that each of us has a unique story and experience. Some have been fighting the battle for years; some have had the luxury of race not intersecting their consciousness very often, if at all. We commit to engage everyone, wherever they find themselves, so we can all move forward, in our own ways, consistent with embracing equity.

FR=EE members commit to engage in ongoing personal work to recognize, understand, and undo any conscious or unconscious beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors that contribute to racial inequities.